


L.I.O.N. Hunter

by John_Steiner



Series: L.I.O.N.I.S.E. [3]
Category: Fantasy - Fandom, distant future - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:08:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22762219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Series: L.I.O.N.I.S.E. [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1635547





	L.I.O.N. Hunter

Getting into the Reg city of Sanjua wasn't hard. Fellhar's own armor gave him more trouble than the Reg soldiers patrolling the ramparts. Steel comprised his pauldrons, parts of his forearm and shin guards, among other minor elements, and so Fellhar ensured they didn't crack against stone as he scaled the wall. Getting a weighted rope end to catch on something also added complication.

Reclaiming his rope line, Fellhar used it to descend the other side and into the city. He wouldn't repeat the climbing feat for the next two walls, for lighting was better and more eyes could potentially spot him. Instead, he timed his intrusion for when guards looked away and flickers of torchlight offered just the right shadow.

Fellhar brought up the speed of his thoughts, whereas Regs and other people could not. It was a gift bestowed onto his people, the Velox from powers unknown. Speeding up one's thinking could be taxing if prolonged, and more so if of the body, however, Fellhar knew to keep his accelerated sense of time in short bursts with sufficient moments of rest between.

However, even quickened, Fellhar risked being detected, and drew some knives out in preparation. Having slipped by the innermost gate, Fellhar nonetheless disturbed the air enough for a Reg guard to be made curious by the breeze.

"Did you feel that?" the guard asked another.

"I saw a torch flicker, nothing more," the second guard replied.

"Yet the night air is as still as it's ever been," the first guard said.

"Let's look around, just to be sure," the second Reg guard accepted.

Noting the approaching dance of yellow on the ground, Fellhar slowly edged along a wall under the overhanging roof of a barracks. Just as the two guards stepped past the open gate, Fellhar backed around the corner of the barracks and out of their sight.

From there, Fellhar turned around and, in short spurts, accelerated his mind to spot minor deformations of the path ahead and any debris on it. He easily avoided stepping on loose pebbles and random dips, any one of which could've altered Fellhar's balance enough for a sudden correction to avoid injury also being noticed.

Gaining distance from the walls and keeps, Fellhar made his way to one of the lesser castles near the center of the fortified fiefdom. The castle was the resident of Lord Daros and his most trusted knights. Their venturing outside Reg lands was seen as a threat to neighboring races, one of which paid Fellhar's nomadic tribe handsomely to dispatch the valiant band of knights.

As with the outer wall, Fellhar sized up a place to ascend, though this time without his rope line. Yet, all wasn't lost, since Fellhar saw minor crevices that, with the appropriate attention to detail, a sharp mind and conditioned body could scale.

Beforehand, Fellhar concealed himself into shadow long enough to watch a roving patrol pass by more than once. He needed the timing to be sure his climb would escape notice. The ascent went slower than before. Fellhar accepted that in trade for not alerting anyone to the noise of throwing weights for establishing a rope line.

Reaching a ledge, Fellhar paused just before laying a secure grip onto the base of a rod iron railing. He listened for any sound, and then dared latch onto a vertical iron beam. Pulling up, Fellhar stopped again to see that no one stood on the balcony.

Fellhar swung himself over the railing and tread lightly to the door. He made sure to duck under the view of a window, even though no light came from inside, and then rose up to test the door handle. The iron latch required careful gradation of movement, and the aged hinges likewise needed minding. Yet, with little in the way of creaking or squeals, Fellhar made it inside.

The room smelled musty and cluttered with furnishings, but everything was draped over with sheets of linen. It made Fellhar think that the room once belonged to someone who died and that Daros couldn't bring himself to clear away the memory of them by taking their possessions out.

"That will be your undoing," Fellhar whispered barely above silence, as he picked his way around the crowding of furniture.

Reaching the inner door, Fellhar had to drop down and felt around the floor to be sure nothing underfoot would give him away. Next, he worked his touch up the door seam. The dark inside proved more abyssal than outside.

At last finding the handle, Fellhar opened the door with care matching his prior intrusion. He discovered a hall also devoid of illumination. The denizens of Daros' hall had extinguished everything for the night. And yet, someone nonetheless padded along on light bare feet.

Unsure who among the Regs would be up at this hour, Fellhar felt a surge of trepidation up his spine. A faint glow entered his awareness, but this one didn't flicker from a flame. Rather, a greenish glow grew in luminosity as it neared a turn in the hall. The source was a jar of fireflies, and the barer also revealed themselves.

Fellhar had heard of the Jung; a tropical people of someone greenish skin and pointed ears, yet Fellhar hadn't seen any in person and knew very little about how they lived. His most critical discovery was that this Jung's eyes reflected more light, and there crouched Fellhar right in their field of view.

"Sir Irn," the Jung called out, his eyes affixed. "Lord Daros! An intruder!"

Throughout the castle, Fellhar heard stirrings and clamor soon followed. Panic triggered Fellhar's mental power, so that his reach for a throwing knife felt like an act in a world of honey.

However, the Jung was quick in his own way, and a short dash closed the distance to Fellhar by the time he was in throwing position. The hurled blade pinged off the glass jar at a long angle to skid off. The attack startled the Jung, who dropped the jar, but grabbed onto other throwing blades on Fellhar's chest.

Fellhar drew out his fighting knives in a double slash at the Jung, though the Jung had sense enough to back away to evade the opening attack. Darting back in, the Jung swiped one knife at Fellhar's throat followed by another.

Though quick in mind, Fellhar's actions couldn't keep up withe small agile Jung, and only his ability to anticipate from subtle movements allowed him to mount a defense of clanging steel on steel.

"Sir Irn," the Jung cried out again, while narrowly avoiding the loss of an eye.

By now, Fellhar heard weapons drawn and heavier steps trampling throughout the castle. The closest of those came from behind.

"Muster the guard," came a deeper voice of a full sized man. "Defend our Lord at all costs!"

Risking an unblocked attack from behind, Fellhar threw himself into the Jung and rammed a knife pommel against the side of the lithe Jung's head. Getting the recoil effect he needed, Fellhar followed the action through just enough to position the blade at the greenish man's throat. However, a slice across Fellhar's back thwarted his next move.

Unsure if the sword attack cut too deep through his leather armor, Fellhar spun around before rising in his stance. Picking out his footwork, Fellhar closed in on the unarmored dark toned Reg knight, and attempted a couple of well placed stabs.

The first bounced off a luckily place sword blade, and the second stabbed into muscle just behind the armpit, not at all where Fellhar aimed. The Reg man's changing position in stance saved him from two mortal piercings.

Fellhar dared a headbutt, as he maintained his close range, and hopped back for a hopeful knife throw. However, a shadow amid scattered fireflies passed overhead. Fellhar's knife met the back of the lightly built Jung's back, just as he grabbed the Reg man.

His clarity diminishing from rapid onset exhaustion, Fellhar simply yearned for a casualty and shuffle-stepped in again with a cross-body stab of a knife, backed by the palm of his other hand. He heard the Jung's breathe catch in mid huff, and a jolt echo through all the Jung's pain-clenched muscles.

"No," the Reg man cried out, having attempted too late to pull the Jung off to the side. "Wren!"

In the weak firefly light, Fellhar realized that something boiled within the Reg knight, who set his stance more resolutely than before. A fury of sword thrusts and slashes came at Fellhar, whose physical speed dropped down to normal over a few breaths. Even his mind fogged, leaving only fear to power his reactions.

Worse, Fellhar's weapons didn't have the necessary length to adequately block at mundane mental perception, let alone the groggy frame of mind left to Fellhar after such exertion. He didn't even see the half-handed sword hold that racked a hilt across his cheek.

Knocked against a wall, Fellhar couldn't face the Reg again before feeling a breath-stealing stab into his back. He barely heard the sword withdrawn, before Fellhar could whirl weakly around. By then, the sword returned straight up under his rib cage, through his stomach and into his heart.

Coughing and tasting blood, Fellhar slid to the floor. He bore witness to his fruits, that being the dark Reg man cradling and weeping over the dying Jung named Wren.

"Are you hurt, Sir Irn?" was all Wren gasp to his master.

"Shhh," the Reg name named Irn sobbed and lay caring fingers onto Wren's lips, and then crying out. "Somebody! We need bandages and medicine! Wren's hurt! Lord Daros?"

Fellhar's sight faded, though the echoes of other footfalls reached his ears before he lost also that sense. Only a peculiar warmth from his spine entered Fellhar's mind before that too diminished.

Far above the castle and keeps, above the night sky's few scant clouds glistening in moonlight, the last warmth of the Velox assassin was heard. The Laser Integrated Orbital Network accepted the upload from microscopic nanabot based cellular machines embedded in the assassin known as Fellhar.

L.I.O.N. had noticed peculiarities in the species it listed as Homo veloxcognisus. The probes were dispatched to conduct a genomic assay to establish how the hominid species was able to improve nerve induction velocity to well over double of normal.

Other subjects of the Velox were likewise part of L.I.O.N.'s sample size, and the orbital intelligence established that an event of horizontal gene transfer had occurred. However, L.I.O.N. still worked to establish the source. No animals in the Velox people's home range exhibited the quality.

All L.I.O.N. had to go on was that Velox oral tradition once spoke of an ancient plague that brought incredibly high fevers that nearly annihilated their ancestors. The final body temperature readings of the specimen named Fellhar suggested that feverish symptoms coincided with his accelerated perception, but that L.I.O.N. needed more to demonstrate causality.

The unusual Velox trait tended to dampen sympathy with rashness, and so L.I.O.N. had ruled out positive selection for the species until additional data could be collected.

The Jung known as Wren, however did appear to exhibit the altruism that L.I.O.N. was designed to favor in its countless millennia of Intelligent Selective Evolution over the many descendant species of Homo sapiens; the original civilization that deployed L.I.O.N.

The injuries inflicted onto Wren were too severe to counter with the low nano-probe concentrations present in the Jung. However, Wren still had an extended family. His deft and devout sacrifice for his Reg lord ensured that L.I.O.N. had reason to offer cellular augmentation to Wren's family, that they might pass on the traits of heightened compassion.


End file.
